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Category: Nintendo

There was a time when Nintendo was staying as far away as it possibly could from the mobile gaming market. It appears those days are now over. Nintendo is not only putting out mobile games, but those games are having massive success at launch and beyond. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is a spinoff of the full version of Animal Crossing.

Now that this mobile game has launched, it has ended up being the second most successful mobile game launch of all time for Nintendo. While that sounds like a really, really impressive number, we should point out that there really haven’t been that many mobile games coming from Nintendo at all. The good news is that while the pool might be small, there has clearly been a demand for this game.

According to Gamingbolt, this mobile version of Animal Crossing has seen more than 15 million installs worldwide in the first six days since launch. Those numbers are almost twice what Nintendo saw with the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes. That game had a pretty successful launch but only saw eight million installs in the first six days it was on the market. The only game that has actually done better for Nintendo on the mobile platform is Super Mario Run.

The company broke into the mobile platform in a very big way, having more than 32 million installations when the game first hit the market for the iOS and Android devices. The one problem for Nintendo is that Super Mario Run might have had a ton of downloads, but those downloads didn’t really transfer over into people paying money to unlock the whole game.

Fire Emblem Heroes, according to Nintendo’s own book keeping actually led to much better revenues, despite having about a fourth of the downloads and installs. It’s far too early to see if Animal Cross: Pocket Camp is going to do all that well when it comes to revenues, but its off to a good start.

Earlier this year, Nintendo announced that it would release a mobile application that would assist players with their games. Well, the time has finally come. As of July 18th, 2017, the Nintendo Switch Online app has been released through the App Store and Google Play Store.

Based on the app, Splatoon 2 is currently the only game that will be supported. Once Splatoon 2 is released on Friday, players will be able to invite friends, use voice chat, view stage schedules, and view battle statistics. Battle statistics include win rate, total turf inked, and letter rank in ranked modes, just to name a few.

This is especially exciting for Splatoon veterans where statistics, such as win rate, was hidden in the first Splatoon game. Even statistics that were available before will now be readily available in the app. Hardcore players will be able to look at past battles and analyze their performance and see what they can do to improve. In addition, the new game mode in Splatoon 2, Salmon Run, will have its schedule posted as well.

The only feature that is not exhilarating in this app is most likely the voice chat feature. It might be useful, but the setup that Nintendo has suggested seems a bit too convoluted. Especially when calling someone instead would more or less complete the same task.

Other than that, though, it seems that this will be advantageous for any Splatoon fan. Search “Nintendo Switch Online” in the App Store or Google Play Store to download the app today.

The Nintendo Switch is the latest console venture by one of the most legendary gaming companies of all time, Nintendo. The Nintendo Switch, like many of the prior Nintendo console ventures, aimed to bring about something completely new while still offering that tinge of nostalgia to older gamers. This meant that they wanted to innovate without completely changing the soul of their system. Thus the Nintendo Switch is born. The Switch released to immediately amazing sales statistics and it seems like the console is only going to do better as time goes on. In fact, Nintendo recently released their newest addition to the Nintendo Switch — an online companion application for your phone.

In an effort to stick with the times and constantly innovate within the expectations of current technology, the Nintendo Switch team decided to release an online companion application. Nintendo Switch Online is coming to both the iOS as well as the Android mobile systems completely free ahead of the launch of the popular ‘Splatoon’ sequel, ‘Splatoon 2’. The Nintendo Switch Online application won’t be mandated in order to enjoy what the Nintendo Switch has to offer, but it will bring about a ton of new features that dramatically enhance your playing time.

What we know about the Nintendo Switch Online app is this: you will be able to view your stats, see what your friends are up to, and even buy digital items for your characters in games. You can also use the application to create groups of friends in order to play games together. One of the biggest benefits of using the Nintendo Switch Online app is that you can set up group voice chats through the interface, allowing you to game together while you talk. The Nintendo Switch online features are free right now but multiplayer and classic game downloads may go up to $20 per year starting in 2018.

One perspective is that Arms should be treated like a casual multiplayer game like Mario Kart; Arms was developed by Mario Kart 8’s team. While the MK series is known for being novice-friendly, it also offers incentives for players with more gaming experience. Much like Wii Sports: Boxing, Arms’ controls are based around motion controls. While all a player needs to do for their character to punch is to throw a punch himself, the intricacies of Arms’ control system include a mild learning curve-motion controls are also involved when jumping, dodging and blocking.

The previously-mentioned variety of maneuvers make be just the thing to attract fans of competitive fighting games; how a player throws his punches affects the trajectories that his character’s attacks will fly, allowing for strategies like hooking around barriers to sneak in a hit or two. Another factor in the variety of Arms’ play styles is that each of its ten characters has a different “feel” and different weapons, the eponymous “arms,” to strike with; some arms can apply poison or blind, while others allow for projectile attacks. Ultimately, Arms has the potential to join competitive fighting games like the “Smash Brothers” and “Mortal Kombat” franchises without the need to exactingly memorize button inputs.

Yet another potential market for Arms would be as a compelling first-party title for the Switch beyond “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” While Arms is an innovative new IP for Nintendo, its strength is in its multiplayer offerings; just like Mario Kart or any serious fighting game, very little exists within Arms’ single-player experience beyond playing “Grand Prix Mode” to learn a character and unlock items. Arms is a great game for people who regularly have company over for gaming.